Irish nationals told to leave Ukraine 'immediately' amid threat of Russian invasion
A man walks with his dog in front of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022. Picture: AP Photo/Andrew Kravchenko
The Department of Foreign Affairs is advising against all travel to Ukraine and is asking any Irish citizens to leave the country "immediately by commercial means" amid ongoing tensions at the Russian border.
The advice until this afternoon was against non-essential travel to Ukraine, however, a statement issued this afternoon says the department is upgrading the travel advice following "intensive consultations" with EU partners.
It comes after UK Foreign Office updated its advice on Friday evening to urge UK nationals to âleave now while commercial means are still availableâ.
The Irish Embassy in Kyiv will remain open with a small number of essential staff remaining as the situation is kept under review.
The statement added: "The Department has been in direct contact with all of those scheduled to travel to Ukraine for surrogacy purposes in recent days. The Department will continue to provide support to each of these individuals and families with advice relevant to their particular situation."
The department says any Irish nations requiring emergency consular assistance should contact them at +353 1 4082000.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden held a high-stakes telephone call as a tense world watched and worried that an invasion of Ukraine could begin within days.
Before talking to Mr Biden, Mr Putin had a telephone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with him in Moscow earlier in the week to try to resolve the biggest security crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War.
A Kremlin summary of the call suggested that little progress was made towards cooling down the tensions.
In a sign that American officials were getting ready for a worst-case scenario, the United States announced plans to evacuate its embassy in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, and Britain joined other European nations in urging its citizens to leave Ukraine.
Russia has massed troops near the Ukraine border and has sent personnel to military exercises in neighbouring Belarus, but insistently denies that it intends to launch an offensive against Ukraine.
